The herb is sweet and tasteless in flavour, slightly cold in nature. It acts on spleen, stomach and lung channels.

Tasteless for removing dampness, sweet for tonifying spleen, slight coldness for eliminating heat, and neutral, not oily and not drastic, coix seed as a herb for eliminating heat and dampness is indicated for edema, diarrhea, damp arthralgia and pulmonary abscess.

Semen Coicis effects:

Inducing diuresis: The herb is often used in combination with umbellate pore-fungus, poria, oriental water plantain rhizome and other herbs for inducing diuresis and alleviating edema, to treat water and dampness retention, edema, beriberi and dysuria.

Excreting dampness: The herb is often used in combination with phellodendron bark, atractylodes rhizome, achyranthes root for clearing heat and dampness, alleviating arthralgia and pain, to treat arthralgia due to damp-heat and swelling, heat and pain in joints; and with apricot kernel, round cardamon seed and other herbs for eliminating dampness and heat and promoting Qi circulation to treat early damp-heat syndrome, fever, fatigue, chest tightness and greasy tongue.

Clearing heat and pus: The herb can be used in combination with common reed root, Chinese waxgourd seed and other herbs for clearing heat from the lung and pus to treat pulmonary abscess, cough and purutemr phlegm.